In the electronics industry, occurrence of an electrostatic discharge (ESD) can severely and irreparably damage unprotected electronic devices. Many integrated circuit chips have built-in ESD protection circuits to provide some measure of protection against the undesirable flow of damage-causing currents.
In high radio frequency (RF) applications (e.g., RF frequency greater than 1 GHz), parasitic capacitance (and inductance) from ESD protection circuits may have a negative effect on the electronic device performance and may cause a significant decrease in the RF bandwidth. The negative effect of parasitic capacitance on integrity of data signals and device performance may be even more pronounced as the RF frequency increases above 10 GHz.
From the foregoing discussion, it is desirable to provide tools and techniques to improve device performance as well as provide ESD protection to electronic devices over a wide range of frequencies including high frequency RF applications.